China Unicom, China's second-largest cellphone company, has awarded Nortel Networks of Canada contracts worth US$139m to develop CDMA (code division multiple access) networks in four regions. They cover Chongqing and the provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong and Heilongjiang, and will add capacity for 6m users. The networks should be completed by the end of this year.
Nortel is also planning to build a campus in central Beijing to house its sales and marketing and research facilities. It plans to spend about US$200m on research and development in China over the next three years and to double the number of its employees engaged in R&D activities.